THE YEAR was 1818, and the Howe family had just moved to Brandon,
Vermont, when the young mother fell ill.1 Hannah was thirty years old and
suffered from consumption. Lying on her sickbed, and knowing her days
were numbered, she turned to her husband with a weighty question: “Do
you doubt of my being prepared to die?” The question of how to die well occupied Hannah's thoughts long before she fell ill. Imagining her deathbed,
she had often wished that “she might die shouting, and have an easy passage over the Jordan of death.”

As her day of departure approached, she continued to grow weaker in
body and could not converse much. But when she heard talk of the happy
death of a certain person she smilingly began waving her hand. Her husband then asked if she felt as though she could shout. “Yes,” said she, and
still waving her hand, she cried “Glory! Glory! Glory!”

The final day came. Through the course of the day, she appeared as
usual and her mind was clear and serene. She was surrounded by friends
and supported by her husband who documented her last hour. “I took
her by the hand and asked her if her confidence held out? If Jesus was
precious? And if she had a prospect of heaven? She pressed my hand, and
said, 'yes,' and fell asleep in the arms of Jesus without a struggle or a
groan.”

Early nineteenth-century Americans named this triumphant passage to
death “euthanasia.” For them, the word signified a pious death blessed by
the grace of God.

At a young age, Dr. Arthur E. Hertzler's daughter came down with a terminal illness, most likely typhoid fever.2 “In the saddest hour of my life, at
the deathbed of my daughter,” the nineteenth-century physician recalled,
“on one side was the magnificent and always faithful Carrie the nurse, on
the other side the incomparable Dr. Dampbell, calmly applying measures
of resuscitation which he and I knew were utterly futile.”

Notes for this page

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.comPublication information:
Book title: The Modern Art of Dying: A History of Euthanasia in the United States.
Contributors: Shai J. Lavi - Author.
Publisher: Princeton University Press.
Place of publication: Princeton, NJ.
Publication year: 2007.
Page number: 1.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may
not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.

If you are trying to select text to create highlights or citations, remember that you must now click or tap on the first word, and then click or tap on the last word.

Print this page

While we understand printed pages are helpful to our users, this limitation is necessary
to help protect our publishers' copyrighted material and prevent its unlawful distribution.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.